Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM and Microsoft announced yesterday that they will create a non-profit organization that will work to advance public understanding of artificial intelligence technologies and formulate best practices on the challenges and opportunities within the field.

The objective of the Partnership on AI is to address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society.

Together, the organization’s members will conduct research, recommend best practices and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness and inclusivity; transparency, privacy and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology. It does not intend to lobby government or other policymaking bodies.

The organization’s founding members will each contribute financial and research resources to the partnership and will share leadership with independent third-parties, including academics, user group advocates and industry domain experts.

There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members on the board of this new organization. The Partnership is in discussions with professional and scientific organizations, such as the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), as well as non-profit research groups including the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), and anticipates announcements regarding additional participants in the near future.

AI technologies hold tremendous potential to improve many aspects of life, ranging from healthcare, education and manufacturing to home automation and transportation.

Through rigorous research, the development of best practices and an open, transparent dialogue, the founding members of the Partnership on AI hope to maximize this potential and ensure it benefits as many people as possible.

Member statements

Leaders of each company represented in the partnership released the following statements:

“We’re in a golden age of Machine Learning and AI. As a scientific community, we are still a long way from being able to do things the way humans do things, but we’re solving unbelievably complex problems every day and making incredibly rapid progress. This partnership will ensure we’re including the best and the brightest in this space in the conversation to improve customer trust and benefit society. We are excited to work together in this partnership with thought leaders from both industry and academia.”

Mustafa Suleyman, Co-Founder and Head of Applied AI, DeepMind along with Greg Corrado, Senior Research Scientist, Google:

“Google and DeepMind strongly support an open, collaborative process for developing AI. This group is a huge step forward, breaking down barriers for AI teams to share best practices, research ways to maximize societal benefits, and tackle ethical concerns, and make it easier for those in other fields to engage with everyone’s work. We’re really proud of how this has come together, and we’re looking forward to working with everyone inside and outside the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to make sure AI has the broad and transformative impact we all want to see.”

Yann LeCun, Director of Facebook AI Research:

“The possibilities for positively impacting a global society with advances in AI are numerous, ranging from connectivity, healthcare, and transportation. As researchers in industry, we take very seriously the trust people have in us to ensure advances are made with the utmost consideration for human values. By openly collaborating with our peers and sharing findings, we aim to push new boundaries every day, not only within Facebook, but across the entire research community. To do so in partnership with these companies who share our vision will help propel the entire field forward in a thoughtful responsible way.”

Francesca Rossi, AI Ethics Researcher, IBM Research:

“Over the past five years, we’ve seen tremendous advances in the deployment of AI and cognitive computing technologies, ranging from useful consumer apps to transforming some of the world’s most complex industries, including healthcare, financial services, commerce, and the Internet of Things. This partnership will provide consumer and industrial users of cognitive systems a vital voice in the advancement of the defining technology of this century – one that will foster collaboration between people and machines to solve some of the world’s most enduring problems – in a way that is both trustworthy and beneficial.”

“We’re excited about this historic collaboration on AI and its influences on people and society. We see great value ahead with harnessing AI advances in numerous areas, including health, education, transportation, public welfare, and personal empowerment. We’re extremely pleased with how early discussions among colleagues blossomed into a promising long-term collaboration. Beyond folks in industry, we’re thrilled to have other stakeholders at the table, including colleagues in ethics, law, policy, and the public at large. We look forward to working arm-in-arm on best practices and on such important topics as ethics, privacy, transparency, bias, inclusiveness, and safety.”